Edgewise
by Pandastacia
Summary: Really, it all began because Draco's mother wanted a sphinx.
1. For Want Of A Sphinx

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling. I am a poor college student.  
**Dedication**: To Rhea, for being all flaily over this with me; to les, for saying, "THEY SHOULD JUST FUCK ON TOP OF THE TABLE. JUST SAYIN'," even though I'm still not sure whether she was talking about Draco and Hermione or Sakura and Sasuke as her words are equally applicable.  
**Notes**: I'm bad at following through, but this story shouldn't be terribly long (so approximately 10, 15 chapters). I will do my best to finish this if nothing else writing-wise this year.

* * *

Years later, they will say it began because of a small coffee shop on the corner of Knockturn and Diagon Alley that they both frequented. They'll say it was… serendipitous – almost like Madam Puddifoot's in Hogsmeade minus all of the frou frou year-long Valentine-esque décor and mystique.

They will say that, and they will be wrong.

It wasn't quite fate and while it lingered close to coincidence, everything that happened during the six months Ron and Hermione took a break was circumstantial by the only account that matters: the truth.

In all honesty, there was no real reason that it happened where it did anymore than any other place in central London. It could've come about in the hallways of the Ministry or the coffee shop Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy would later attribute with the alteration in their estranged acquaintance.

Really, it all began because Draco's mother wanted a sphinx.

* * *

Hermione hadn't had to confront a basilisk or acromantulas with Harry or Ron, but she'd seen her fair share of battles. She'd dueled both by their side and on her own in the final battle of Hogwarts against legions of Death Eaters – by Merlin's left knee sock, she'd figured out that there was a basilisk in the Chamber in the first place! She had spent months living in a tent on a hunt for fragments of a dark wizard's soul and had been attacked by the Snatchers.

Bellatrix Lestrange had even made her arm her personal scratching post, and she'd survived that.

So what did she have to be scared of?

Taking a shuddering sip of peppermint tea, she reminded herself: Draco Malfoy wasn't a basilisk.

At least, he hadn't been one when they'd been in school; else he'd have stared in her eyes every opportunity he got, she figured.

It's been years, anyway, since they last seen each other, let alone talked – four, to be exact. Her old wounds had healed, her teeth were now standard sized (Thank you, Madam Pomfrey!), and she had either forgiven or forgotten just about everything he'd ever done.

Chewing the inside of her cheek, Hermione wondered if he had outgrown "Mudblood" and if there had been enough time for his magically-stoked ego to shrink down to size.

There did seem to be enough space for oxygen in the room.

Hermione skimmed the list of appointments for the day, line by line getting crossed off as someone else in the department finished with another client. She didn't have to look far; he had made an appointment with the front desk and his name was at the top of the list.

She stood up at her desk, peeking over the top of her cubicle. Out of the cubicles around her, three of them were empty and the last five were closed. She didn't see any way out of it.

Man up, Hermione, she told herself firmly, self-consciously flattening the front of her black skirt and fixing the collar of her deep red blouse. You are just like anyone else working at this office. It'll be quick business and then – what are you worrying about?

She didn't have an answer for that – anyway, an answer that satisfied her and didn't make her sound like she didn't deserve to be called a Gryffindor.

It wasn't Arithmancy, Granger – engage attention, don't invade people's privacy, be personal but professional, listen, and don't wrinkle the paperwork.

Easy enough, theoretically.

Unfortunately, from prior experience, Draco Malfoy had a penchant for moving beyond anything theory would suggest against application.

With a practiced smile on her lips and shoulders squared, Hermione walked around her cubicle to the small waiting area and stood in front of the only person there with a hand held out, ready to be shaken. "Mr. Malfoy, what a… pleasant surprise. What can we do for you today?"

Malfoy blinked at her for a few seconds, eyes narrowed. He wasn't frowning, though. In fact, he looked mildly confused at it, like a vampire in front of a mirror.

"You shake it, Malfoy," she said as professionally as she could. She tried to keep her smile on, but it felt twisted at one corner and tight in the other. It probably came out a grimace.

Charming.

One eyebrow twitched, but he shook her hand, before following her into her small office space.

His presence casually filled the cubicle. It wasn't the pretentious way it had been back in school, with the confidence from old society that came with a sense of grandiose hubris and value of blood purity.

It was still self-assurance, to be sure, but it was… mellower. There was more poise to it than the simple ego of a seventeen-year-old boy who had been raised, supported, and comforted on his natural superiority.

More mature.

She wondered if all of that was there or whether she was just trying to convince herself that everyone could change. Harry believed it, but she didn't know if he still did.

"I didn't know you worked here," was all Malfoy said shortly, settling into the chair by her desk.

"At the Ministry or the, ah, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?" she said. Peering at the sheet, Hermione read, 'High-Level Adoption.' She nodded to herself as she pulled out her third drawer and tapped its side with her wand.

"This particular… department. I thought you would be over with Magical Enforcement, considering your… We'll call them life experiences. With Scarhead and Weasley."

Irritated, she sat up straight and looked at him.

He blinked. "Too soon?"

"Do you ever grow up? What is -?"

He just smirked. "Relax, Granger, I'm only joking, alright? Potter doesn't care what I call him anymore. Anyway," he said, leaning back and placing his feet on the edge of her desk, "he still calls me Ferret on occasion, so I believe I have earned the right to call him whatever I want."

She gave him her best no-nonsense Professor McGonagall look, complete with a withered thin mouth and low almost furrowed eyebrows, and nudged his leather shoes a finger until his feet drooped to the floor. "Within reason."

"Within reason," he agreed, replacing his feet. When she narrowed her eyes further, he tilted his head.

She sighed.

Malfoy took one foot off.

Shaking her head, Hermione licked her fingertips and neatly pulled out a stack of papers. Handing them to him, she said, "Read these and follow the instructions, Mr. Malfoy. I'm sure you know what to do. If you have any questions… feel free to ask."

As he started flipping through the paperwork, she sat back in her chair, elbow resting squarely on a stack of post-it notes, and stared at him with his head bent over the paperwork.

She'd been so nervous and unbelievably tense about how the meeting would go she hadn't really paid attention to him, to how four years had changed the demon of her teenage years. Perhaps calling him that was going a bit far, but "bully" wouldn't have been apt.

Not strong enough.

Years later, Hermione still remembered dreading Potions with his stage whispers in Snape's production of a dungeon, full of the pre-requisite teasing of the brainiac child who hadn't learned that Snape rewarded Gryffindors the way he did flies – by squashing them as painfully slow as possible. He'd been a sad man, Snape.

Draco Malfoy had just been unbearable, because unlike Snape, he did not stop at the dungeon door. Instead, he was her bright shadow in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and later, in their third year, he followed her to Care of Magical Creatures. He was there for her triumphs and her failures, poisoning them regardless until nothing she did felt like it was worth anything.

"Demon" might not have been far off.

Almost as strongly as those memories, she saw his face sixth year, growing wearier and wearier. His eyes grew baggy, his hair lanky and greasy like Snape's, and that boy, arrogant about his beauty and charm, began to disappear little by little. Like Sisyphus, each day was testament to some burden rolled up a hill only to return to its bottom again, aging him till Hermione could barely recognize him. Harry had suspected him of terrible things, things that weren't as bad as what he ended up doing.

Now, years later, they were here, sitting at her desk so he could adopt some magical creature for his personal use.

Sometimes, she thought about how had she changed since they'd graduated from Hogwarts?

Well…

The best thing she could say about herself was that she'd discovered de-frizzing spells.

Malfoy's hair was still as close to white as hair can get without deviating entirely from blond and lacked the lanky mess of sixth year. It - _he_ looked cleaner than he had when she'd last seen him in the war, back to those days when he was the Slytherin house's glory boy: Snape's pet, pure-blooded, and Pansy Parkinson's favorite.

She couldn't help snorting at the thought of the pug-faced girl.

Malfoy looked up and she tried to look busy at her desk. "What?"

Hermione blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

He eased back into the chair and looked at her. "I mean, what was that sound for? And the face?"

Instinctively touching her face for a second, she asked, "What face?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You looked entirely too amused at something – while you were looking at me. What was it?"

"Oh. I was just thinking."

"Really."

She glared at him. "If you _must_ know, I was thinking about Pansy Parkinson."

"While looking at me?"

"If it bothers you so much, I'll look at the wall."

"Thank you," he said sarcastically before going back to filling out the papers and reading them.

His face was as pointy at the chin as ever and his eyes were snappy still, a fierce winter wind contained within a gaze that stood out against his pale skin, but it had… toned down since, well, back then.

_He_ had toned down, and damn her if she didn't understand him. It was such a change from the Draco Malfoy she'd grown up with.

…

Well, there had been a war, and everyone had changed with it. She still had nightmares of it in flashes of green light and red slashes through the air, part of a rainbow barrage of spells. There were screams and shouts, bodies torn asunder by spells no one should know.

Even now, the sound of gunfire didn't scare her as much as the crack of _avada kedavra_, stilling her heart for a moment and chilling her bones.

It didn't surprise Hermione, really, that Harry was talking to Malfoy. Harry's face after going to Dumbledore's office in the middle of the Battle of Hogwarts had been ashen, shaken – transformed as if the floor under his feet had been taken away from him, as if meaning of life had presented itself, a lie in the face of everything he had believed in.

After Snape.

The Boy Who Lived became a man that night.

When everyone in their year who had decided to come back for the last month of school, Harry had been the one to try to cross the fundamental divide between himself and the Slytherins. Because of the state of the castle and the limited room in the houses, the seventh years had all been assigned to the Room of Requirements.

When the physical dividers had disappeared, Hermione had done what she'd always done best: gone to the library to think.

Perhaps labels weren't helpful – maybe they created the future out of expectations and stereotypes; they made villains out of ambitious Slytherin children, stuck-up teacher's pets out of bookworm Ravenclaws, friends out of loyal Hufflepuffs, and warriors out of brave Gryffindors. Not all of them were bad…

But they made the lines too simple, too organized.

Anyway, after Hogwarts, she expected some of the labels and House allegiances to fall apart. There would no longer be a Sorting Hat to tell her how to categorize the people she met. She'd have to become her own better judge.

Looking back, she noted the discrepancies in the people she'd met. Snape had followed loyalty and bravery over ambition; Dumbledore had had his weak moments; and Peter Pettigrew…

Needless to say, the Hat wasn't perfect.

Some Slytherins were easier to know than others. Not all of them had been friendly, but a month of living together had led to an uneasy peace, at the very least. There had been a few surprise friends, Blaise Zabini, to name one. He lived in the library just as much as she did and they were in many of the same classes.

It was… convenient.

They still met up every once in a while over coffee at Cream and Sugar when her work wasn't too busy. It wasn't as often as either of them would like, but Hermione loved her work.

Malfoy, though, had always been a different story. After all that had happened, she could forgive a few things, like not giving Harry away at first at Malfoy Manor, but there were years of damage and slowly healing scars that light hearted banter took thinking of how she would be with Harry or Ron.

"All done."

His voice startled out her of her thoughts.

"Read everything?"

He shook his head, hair falling in front of his eyes. "Unbelievably, yes."

"Signed your name twenty-six times?"

"I… wasn't counting, but I signed my name a lot. I'm not going to forget it anytime soon," he said with a small twist of his lips. It looked something like a smile, so Hermione grinned in turn.

It came a little easier this time.

"Okay, do you have any questions before you go?" she asked, hands clasped together.

"Was it necessary to sign all of those papers?"

"What were you planning on adopting?"

"A sphinx."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Really, Malfoy. I suppose your family does have a lot of valuable treasure. Family heirlooms and such…"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Gringotts has a 'Supply your own sphinx' line in its safety deposit box contract. Mother wanted one."

"Well," she drawled, keeping a straight face, "considering all of the dangers that come with keeping a pet sphinx, we have you waive a lot of rights. For instance, as you may have noted in the really thick packet on item 5c, it's not our responsibility if you forget the answer to the riddle you set to it and the sphinx decapitates you. Nor is it our responsibility if you take too long answering the riddles and the aforementioned decapitation occurs anyway. The magical creature only becomes our responsibility when it rampages through downtown London and requires many Memory Charms."

In response to his look of incredulity, Hermione told him, "It happens. I know, I know, you won't forget..."

Muttering to himself, he stuck his hands in the pockets of his suit pants. "Well, none of them were _me_."

"I'm sure they said that, too, sir."

For the nth time in the past hour, he smirked at her.

They shook hands.

Pursing his lips, Malfoy said, "It was… good to see you, Miss Granger."

She inclined her head. "A pleasure, Mr. Malfoy."

As he walked out the door and his heels tapped against the tile of the hallway, Hermione almost couldn't believe that she actually meant what she'd said.

"_A pleasure, Mr. Malfoy_."

She needed a drink.


	2. For Want Of Time

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter nor any of its characters. They are the property of JK Rowling.**  
Dedication:** to the love stories we can't stop watching, over and over again. To les, my fellow Slytherin; Rhea, Ravenclaw buddy; and Sara, the Gryffinwhore.  
**Notes**: Chapter two already. I surprised myself, to be honest. I hope you enjoy it. I love Blaise; can't really say why because he's not in canon much, but I'd like to think he has a wit and a half and that he just needed someone to bring his ego down a bit. Get him to care, mostly.

* * *

Sometimes, Hermione wondered what stopped wizards and witches from adding hours to the day – slowing the rotational velocity of the earth, or something.

Irrational wondering, she thought sleepily; it was probably irrational to use magic to make the daylight last longer, but considering how much work she had yet to do, she couldn't bring herself to give a damn. Surely everyone would like a few more hours, to sleep or… file all of the paperwork they'd decided to postpone until the next day because it was already almost nine in the evening by the time they'd gotten to it.

She yawned as she walked through the door of Cream and Sugar. Perhaps it was before six, but out of her group of friends, Hermione was one who liked to ease into the day. Even if she lost an hour and a half of sleep, she preferred to spend the time at her favorite coffee shop, doing things that she enjoyed before heading off to a long day of work.

Like reading on a chaise lounge with a cup of properly brewed coffee.

"A medium caramel latte with an extra shot of espresso, please."

As she turned around carefully with drink in hand, Hermione discovered she wasn't the only one.

She hesitated for a moment. They looked busy, but not saying hello to a friend would be rude…

Walking up to a man hidden behind a book, she noted, "I didn't think they bottled up souls of children here, but I can admit that I've been wrong before. What does it taste like?"

Malfoy lowered his book and leveled her with a stare. "Earl Grey tea. And I thought you were a know-it-all, Granger."

"Oh, so you thought you were one, too? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint."

The third, of slightly darker complexion, threw down his pen and newspaper before looking at them. "God, you two, what must a wizard do to get some peace and quiet around here so he can finish his crossword? Isn't that what these places are for?"

"That's a _library_, Blaise," Hermione drawled, taking up the third seat at the table and setting her magazine down. "I see you found a ferret on your way here."

He shrugged before picking his pen up again. "_Draco_ was on his way to Tea Haven, and I had to save him from their second class brews they dare call tea."

"It's not - ," Malfoy began.

Blaise interrupted him. "How do you like the tea here?"

Malfoy muttered something under his breath.

Hermione leaned towards him slightly. "What was that? Or were you choking on something?"

"It's _passable_," he said, swirling the teacup.

Shaking her head, she looked at Blaise. "Is that a Malfoyism for '_perfectly splendid_' or something?"

Blaise snorted into his cappuccino. "A higher form of praise than that." He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. "I think I might die happy now that I have earned it."

The subject of their discussion seemed to sink lower into his armchair, book over his face. "Do you two normally do this? Dally in the morning, drinking espresso, and making fun of men who like their tea?"

They looked at each other and shrugged.

"Yeah," Hermione said.

"I normally do like to get some reading done," Blaise said thoughtfully, "but you know what they say: never waste an opportunity to poke a sleeping dragon."

Malfoy's voice was muffled from underneath his book. "You know, I don't think that's an actual saying."

"It should be."

Settling back, Hermione sipped at her latte. "I don't think Harry would agree with you. Honestly, he'd suggest that you avoid dragons at all costs – go around an entire country if you think one is there. That's why he didn't go with Ron."

"Ah, I was wondering why he's been around the Ministry without his shadow."

"He's hardly a _shadow_." She frowned, torn between telling Blaise off for the nth time and just accepting that everyone else's perception of Ron couldn't be changed through her words.

Blaise rolled his eyes, waving his hand by his head. He missed entangling his fingers in his dark wavy hair by centimeters. "Merlin, Hermione, if I've said it once, I've said it a million time: I get that you are supposed to defend his honor, being friends and all. Ask this arsehole how I spent almost our entire friendship."

"I never _asked_-," Malfoy started, but Blaise ignored him.

"And maybe it's a little bit different for you two, being exes and all, but seriously, if we have to go through this in a usual way: Harry is the hero, you're the brains, and Ron's the sidekick. Nothing to be ashamed of; just the order of things. I was the brains for this… antihero."

"You know how he _hates_ that label. Everyone-"

Malfoy took his book off his face, and waved it at her. "Granger, if there's something I've learned from my… life experiences, we'll call it, it's this: that if an overwhelming majority of people say something about someone, it's often true."

"Fifth year, Malfoy," Hermione pointed out tartly. "Most people disbelieved Harry about Voldemort's return, despite him being _the chosen one_." She put on her most Trelawney-esque voice for the title, and the two men smirked.

"But that was a special case. Media manipulation and what have you. I'm saying that, as someone who has… observed the group dynamics-"

"And mocked us," Hermione added, mock-glaring.

"- Weasley has always filled in the cracks, but he's not a major piece in and of himself."

She sighed. Rubbing her brows, she said quietly, "That is often the most important part, though, right? A wall cannot stand without mortar inbetween the bricks."

"Right," Blaise said slowly.

"But he's still a sidekick," Malfoy said matter-of-factly. "It doesn't mean that the sidekick isn't important – often, they're the ones who save the hero from themselves. However, they never really leave that role."

"You should never date them just because you're afraid to leave them."

The last point came from Blaise, and Hermione tilted her head to stare at him, eyebrow quirked.

"I thought you wouldn't say anything for or against him."

He stood. "I'm not. Anyway, Shacklebolt wanted to talk to Harry and me about something, so I'm going to leave. You two going to stay here and chat like old biddies?"

Waving him off, Hermione drew her chair closer to the table. "Go on. Now we can talk about you."

Pulling his green cloak over his shoulder, Blaise fixed the clasp."You know what they say: if you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all."

Hermione stared at him with wide eyes. "But then it'll be really quiet."

Malfoy snickered.

Blaise sighed. "You hurt me, you really do."

He kissed her on the cheek before he left.

"I didn't expect you'd be here," Malfoy said as soon as the door had closed. "Not that… I particularly mind or anything, but…" He shrugged.

"Yeah, well, you weren't the only one who was surprised. Blaise…"

It seemed neither of them had anything to say about him other than that; they turned to their reading material.

He was reading _We_ by some foreign fellow – the name was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite remember…

"What's that about?"

Malfoy looked up from the pages. "This? It's…"

He paused, staring at the pages with a look of consternation. "It's complicated, but let me see… It's a dystopic novel. Apparently they're the thing now, in the Muggle world."

"My mother says they're all over the place, like pigeons."

"I will differ to her expertise. Anyway, all of the human race lives in something called the One State, where imagination and emotions have pretty much vanished. People are assigned jobs and lovers. D-503 is an engineer-"

"D-503?"

Malfoy sighed. "They don't have names."

Hermione frowned, twirling one curl around her finger. "That sounds perfectly awful."

"Just because they don't have names?"

"Well, no," she said slowly, "but there is power in a name, you know? It's not a perfectly unique identifier. I know that, while I'm not one of many, there is another Hermione out there, but 'Hermione' means something. It's not a random collection of letters and numbers."

"That's the point, though. There's no individuality, no love – no choice. The government has everything neatly set up. They live in this gigantic bubble and each person's room is clear so everyone can see in and out except when they… require privacy."

"So the book is about breaking out of that? Presumably, there is love."

Riffling through the pages, Malfoy nodded. "This woman who is part of a resistance – entrances him despite what he feels is his better judgment."

She waited for him to speak, but he stayed silent. "Is that it?"

"I haven't finished it yet, Granger."

"Would you recommend it?"

He nodded, turning back to the pages.

This time, she was halfway through an article about the value of the Gringotts stock when Malfoy asked, "So what happened to Weasley?"

"He's in Romania, with Charlie to study dragons."

"Charlie?"

"His brother."

She waited for him to make a comment about the number of Weasley children, but he only hesitated before asking, "Why's that?"

"It's protocol, for Aurors. They're required to specialize in one particular area, and seeing as how rarely Charlie ever leaves Romania and foreign magical creatures were on the list, it seemed a fitting choice."

He said delicately, "You don't seem to think so."

"Well… I just think it wasn't necessarily a good reason for someone to drop everything and leave the country. I'm sure that's not an unusual reaction."

"Is that why you two broke up?"

It was just like Malfoy to bring that up when she was drinking. Sputtering and choking, it was a while before Hermione could ask, "What would make you say that?"

He rolled his eyes as he set his book flat on the table. "Granger, no one is blind – you kind of jumped him in the middle of a hallway during the battle and I _was_ at Hogwarts for the last while, despite… some people's disagreement."

She couldn't help flushing. Fiddling with her mug handle, she said, "It seemed rational at the time."

When he shrugged his shoulders in response, she couldn't tell if he was agreeing or not, but decided not to question it.

"To answer your question, we're taking a break. The strain of long distance relationships can end it on the long _term_, so we're… just waiting."

He snorted for what must've been the tenth time. Hermione had never seen him so amused.

Given, that was mostly because at Hogwarts, her presence only had tended to make him raise his hackles in some taught offense.

"It sounds more like you're afraid."

Frowning at him, she finished her latte. "What is there to be afraid of?"

"You tell me."

She leaned over the table, closer to Malfoy. His eyes followed the movement. "I can't speak for your relationship experience, so I won't, but I think that anyone will agree that the scariest thing about them is knowing that you could lose them if you're not careful. I'm not going to force him to think of what I'd think. Anyway, it's important that we both learn to be independent of each other. I'm still a person, and I am okay without him."

"You're scared of holding him back, that you'll lose him. That he's your only option and if you don't have him, you won't have anyone."

It was her turn to make an ambiguous gesture as she settled back into her chair. She didn't really know what she was afraid of – she didn't know if she was afraid of anything at all.

Part of her wondered what he knew of courage.

Considering sixth year, she thought a little bit. No one could survive the Dark Lord, even if they're on his side, without more than a tablespoon of it.

Neither of them opened their respective books or magazines, this time. They looked at each other, assessing, Hermione thought. She'd had her time to assess him just last week, but she could tell that he was drawing his own conclusions.

When he opened his mouth again, though, he didn't have anything to say about her.

"He's changed," Malfoy said. His voice hovered just above a whisper.

"Who?"

"Blaise. He… talks more."

Hermione laughed quietly, drawing her knees up into her chair. "Is that all?"

"No, but that's… he's… mellowed out. I mean, he's never been the most vehement anti-Mud- Muggleborn, but he was still… still one of us."

She noted his almost slip, but decided to let it go. Changing is difficult, she thought almost-sympathetically.

Part of her, though, couldn't help wondering how deep change had sown its seeds in him.

"'Was', being the keyword. Mind you, it took a while for us to get anywhere remotely near friendship. I remember the first time we talked after the battle. I'd asked if I could borrow 'Moste Potente Potions' when he was done with it because I needed it for class."

In her mind, she could still see his face, looking at her like she was a piece of lint hooked onto his cashmere sweater. "I remember his words even now, to the letter. 'Haven't you seen the Slytherin common room enough?'"

Now, she could laugh, looking back on the confrontation, but back then... "I was so angry – it had been the first week of moving in with all of these people, some of whom suffered from a gigantic case of hero worship and others who would love to see us die in our sleep and he wasn't making my life any easier. 'Like I need to sneak in there – most of you would invite any girl – even a Gryffin_whore_ - up without a second thought.'"

Anyone else's mouth would've dropped open. As it was, Malfoy sat up straight and leaned forward. "You said that to _Blaise_?"

"I mean, looking back on it now, it seems ridiculous. His standards are way too high." Hermione couldn't help grinning. "He looked so shocked, but… it was great. Almost as great as the time I punched you."

"Believe me," he muttered, "it wasn't that great."

"Oh, perhaps not for you, but I have a really good right hook. That was another bad week, now that I think about it.

"Anyway, we very slowly became friends. Took a while until he actually talked. Snarky little bugger... I like to think I was a good influence on him."

"Awful influence, you've been. He was so mean to me – you heard him!" Malfoy sulked, ruffling his hair with one hand.

Smirking over the rim of her mug, Hermione said, "Sorry, I think I was too busy chortling."

She finished her latte as Malfoy slumped against the chair. "I just keep thinking about how we're here now. Eleven – hell, _five_ years ago, I would never have expected that… we could…"

"Talk about Muggle books? Sit here reading one and talking to a Mudblood?"

He looked up at her quickly when she said it.

"Something like that. I just… wonder how we got here. How we all changed. Because we have, I think. I don't know how it happened, but to get here… things would have to be different. After the war, nothing was the same."

Hermione set her mug down harder than she anticipated, eyes hard. "Of course! How could we possibly all get through that war and not come out completely changed? All that we saw – all that we _did_…"

Her voice faltered, and she went silent. "We were so far apart, that there was no room left except to grow closer together."

She thought she heard him say, "I'd like to think I've changed," but he was standing up then, holding his hand out to her. "Time for us to join the day, don't you think?"

Hermione looked at his hand thoughtfully before taking it. Quietly, they tidied up the area around their table and left the café.

"When will we know about the sphinx, Granger? Mother is rather... impatient, at times. I mean, I know that you cannot hurry up the process, but I was curious to know."

Tilting her head to the side, Hermione considered the timeline for such requests. It had been her first major one, so she only had the theoretical date on hand. "I'm pretty sure you'll get it. It's not like they're doing anything else with the sphinxes. According to all of the readings, leaving them with nothing to guard leaves too much opportunity for mischief."

"That's a relief to know."

"I can't really give you a precise date, though I will, of course, get into contact when I know more."

"Thank you."

She blinked at him.

"What?"

"Nothing. Nothing." Hermione fussed with the fraying edge of her cloak. An anti-unraveling charm, her _arse._ "I was just thinking," she sent him a sidewise glance, "that I thought Malfoys made a pledge as soon as they could talk to not thank a Muggle-born."

"Well, pledges are made to be broken."

She stared at him, shocked. "You really do make a pledge?"

He laughed. It rang just slightly in the dingy January air. "You are rather gullible, aren't you?"

Now she remembered, as they walked down the streets and testing the water (so to speak); now she could think about and understand wanting more time and why it wasn't… well, plausible. After all, she had played and twisted time more than the majority of the wizarding community, hours and days hanging on a flimsy piece of jewelry hanging around her neck, and so she knew more than most that the little things, like bigger ones, were not without consequence, after all.

Like giving chances, choosing to believe that someone whose history was intertwined with yours could make something different out of their impending future than they'd made out of their past and into the present.

Days like these, those every days before and after a war, felt like scraps of the fabric of time – so short and fleeting that they'd rip from their own weight. They're held together by those times we feel are too long, the threads. Hermione didn't know what to do with those pieces, but did anyone, really?

And there was the tiny inconsequential fact that slowing the earth's rotation would cause burns from the sun's radiation.

Something like that, anyway.


End file.
